...Or Does It Explode?

Shirin Ebadi's Group Blasts Iranian Human Rights Record

A frank assessment:

"In the year 1386 alternative thinkers and those who are not in line with the ruling policies, regardless of their leanings, faced a lot of intimidation and sentences," the group said, referring to the Iranian year to March 2008.

"Freedom of expression and freedom of circulating information have further declined" since President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to office in August 2005, the report said.

"Censorship and indirect pressure has reached the highest level," it said, adding that 32 media workers were sentenced to jail, lashes and fines, and that 17 publications as well as eight news websites were shut down.

"Despite vast criticism against issuing and carrying out executions, they increased in the past year," it said, adding that at least nine minors were executed.

Don't Fear the Barber

There appears to be a competition between Iranian and Saudi authorities over who can come up with the more ridiculous attempt to police so-called "public morals." Apropos yesterday's post on Iran's struggle to defend against a "Barbie Invasion," here is today's wacky headline of the day:

"Saudi Governor Orders Haircuts for Men Who Hit on Women"

It's the great Saudi haircut crackdown of '08!

Don't Fear the Barbie

Wacky but true headline of the day: "Prosecutor General: Iran Must Fight Barbie Doll Invasion"

Algerian Lawyer Criticizes Judicial Practices - Algerian Government Puts Him on Trial

Well, the Algerian authorities have a sweet sense of irony - prosecuting and convicting a lawyer for criticizing the justice system:

Amnesty International deplores the prosecution of Amine Sidhoum, a lawyer and well-known human rights defender, who was convicted yesterday, 13 April 2008, of bringing the Algerian judiciary into disrepute. The court of Sidi M'hamed in Algiers sentenced him to a six month prison sentence, which it suspended, and a fine of 20,000 dinars (over USD 300).

Amine Sidhoum was tried on 30 March 2008 on charges of bringing the judiciary into disrepute after he publicly criticized the fact that one of his clients had been detained without trial for two and a half years. He was charged in 2006, at the initiative of the Department for Human Rights of the Algerian Ministry of Justice, based on quotes attributed to him in a newspaper interview in 2004.

Amnesty International considers that Amine Sidhoum may have been prosecuted in order to deter him and other human rights defenders from continuing their human rights activities. He is one of the few Algerian lawyers who have been prepared to expose breaches of national and international law by the Algerian authorities, and has been subject to repeated harassment since 2006.

Anyone think the Algerian officials behind this decision have "brought the judiciary into disrepute"? Somebody put them on trial!

The Kuwaiti Fast-Lane: Run a Red, Get Deported

The Kuwaitis have devised a novel solution to their massive immigration problem. What to do when your own citizens are just a third of the population (at best)? You are a minority in your own country, so you've got to keep the non-citizen resident majority in its place.

And the latest technique, according to Al-Arabiya, is devastatingly simple. If any resident with a prior infraction runs a traffic light, they get deported. That's right, deported. As in, kicked out of the country... for a driving infraction.

It's a brilliant two-for-one: you have an excuse to weed out any resident riff-raff and you make sure 66% of the country's drivers are extra careful on the roads.

Another Yemeni Journalist in the Firing Line

A legal complaint accusing a Yemeni MP and human rights activist of offending Islam has angered intellectuals, who say such charges aim only to incite violence against activists...

Tehran: Where the Terriers Live in Terror (Doggone it!)

Iran's security forces are now targeting pooches:

Kuwait's Kross-Dressers Kniptions

Kuwaiti police have new cause to crackdown on cross-dressers. The National Assembly recently approved a new legal code making it illegal to dress like the opposite gender. That's right: cross-dressing is a crime.

Security officials have arrested at least 14 people in Kuwait City since the National Assembly approved an addition (Article 199 bis) to Article 198 of the Criminal Code. The amendment states that “any person committing an indecent act in a public place, or imitating the appearance of a member of the opposite sex, shall be subject to imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year or a fine not exceeding one thousand dinars [US$3,500].”

Dress codes based solely on gender stereotypes restrict both freedom of expression and personal autonomy, Human Rights Watch said. The only known targets of the new Kuwaiti law have been transgender people – individuals born into one gender who deeply identify themselves with another. Kuwait allows transgender people neither to change their legal identity to match the gender in which they live, nor to adapt their physical appearance through gender reassignment surgery. The new law, coming after months of controversy, aims at further restricting their rights and completely eliminating their public presence. In September 2007, the newspaper Al Arabiya reported a new government campaign “to combat the growing phenomenon of gays and transsexuals” in Kuwait.

On December 18, 2007, Al Watan newspaper announced the arrests of three people at a police checkpoint in Salimeya, 10 km southeast of Kuwait City. Days later, police arrested three more people at a checkpoint in Kuwait City. On December 21, security officials detained another three people on Restaurant Street in the Hawalli district, 8 km south of Kuwait City. The same day, two other people were detained at another police checkpoint. Authorities have reportedly arrested three more people in January, one in a coffee shop and two in a taxi stopped by police. Police arrested all 14 because they believed they were “imitating the appearance of the opposite sex.”

All the people detained are being held in Tahla Prison. Friends of the accused told Human Rights Watch that police and prison guards subjected the detainees to physical and psychological abuse. Al-Rai newspaper quoted police as saying that the “confused [men were] deposited in the special ward,” and that the prison administration ordered guards to shave their heads as a form of punishment. The paper quoted a prison administrator as saying “this step [shaving heads] follows the passage of the law concerning men who imitate the appearance of women.” Friends report that at least three of the prisoners were beaten and one was left unconscious. Authorities deported one Saudi Arabian national among those arrested, to face trial in that country. None of the detainees has access to legal representation.

Transgender people in Kuwait tell Human Rights Watch that they are now afraid to leave their homes – even for work or to meet basic needs – for fear of arrest and ill-treatment. Arbitrary and intrusive gender-based codes for acceptable demeanor and dress violate the rights to privacy and to free expression protected under international law. The beatings and ill-treatment to which authorities reportedly subjected the prisoners violate internationally recognized prohibitions against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

The Drinking Will Kill You...

... actually, no, the mullahs will:

An Iranian court has sentenced a 22-year-old man to death for violating the Islamic Republic's ban on drinking alcohol several times, a news agency said this week. Under Iran's Islamic sharia law, a person who is caught drinking for a fourth time and confesses faces possible capital punishment, even though legal experts say executions for this offence are very rare.

"My client had been drinking at home for a fourth time and he made some disturbance in the street and police arrested him," his lawyer, Aziz Nokandei, told the ISNA news agency...

Last week, Iran's judiciary chief ordered a halt to public executions in Iran unless they have his approval. While those sentenced to death would still be hanged behind prison walls, the move by Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi appeared designed to lower the public profile of Iran's increasing number of executions.

Murder, adultery, rape, armed robbery, apostasy and drug trafficking are all punishable by death under Iran's sharia law, practised since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution. Rights group Amnesty International says Iran has one of the highest rates of executions in the world.

One is tempted to make a joke about Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Iran, but this story isn't funny. It's yet another example of the depravity of a society where essential civil rights do not exist.

Saudis Plan New Law to Regulate NGO Activities

For the first time ever, Saudi Arabia's Shura Council has passed a draft law that would regulate civil society organizations by establishing a “National Authority for Civil Society Organizations" (NACSO).

While the provisions still need to be passed by the cabinet, it's worth considering this is a positive development. On the one hand, it might enable an independent civil society scene to flourish.

On the other hand, naaaa... not really gonna happen. It's just another way for the regime to control civic groups while supposedly burnishing its reformist credentials.

The question is, will we once again be played for suckers?